8 ms·
Why is the bezel so thick? A 1-2cm bezel around the entire "mini" device seems a bit odd, given that the iPad Mini is a relatively tiny device and phones these
by metadat 2y ago
Why is the bezel so thick? A 1-2cm bezel around the entire "mini" device seems a bit odd, given that the iPad Mini is a relatively tiny device and phones these days come with a 1-2mm bezel (10x less useless border).
Is it a cost saving measure / sneaky margin increaser, or what might be the motivation?
Edit:
Touch interference is a good idea. Still, from the picture, it looks like the bezel could be half as thick and work well. Sorry to be such a stickler, I am genuinely curious if Apple is chasing better margins, the best feasible UX, or something else.
Could it be that since this device is only $650 USD, it isn't expensive enough to warrant a premium display? (Like the iPhone SE https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/)
If so, I wish there was a fancier "Pro" model with premium components. IIRC, I paid $1000 for my first iPad, it was the first super high-resolution one back in 2012. Perhaps there aren't enough customers who are sensitive to wasted screen real estate on an 8-inch device.. and FWIW I have noticed a constant stream of toddlers pacified by iPad Minis whenever I'm at Costco.
- spython 2y agoI think it's so that the fingers holding the device don't obstruct the view/ don't get counted as touch event.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoI’d be surprised if thumb rejection/palm rejection isn’t close to perfect by iPadOS 18.
- browningstreet 2y agoI’m forever triggering the camera app, while locking the device, on my iPhone 15 pro max. Every day, regularly.
- dankwizard 2y agoHow small are your hands?
- onion2k 2y agoConsider the possibility that the person here is not an adult Western man.
- happymellon 2y agoOn top of that, just consider that there may be someone with a different body shape. There is a really weird vibe that some folks put out trying to body shame over the internet.
- sph 2y ago"The phone is fine, it's your genetics that are the problem here"
- sph 2y agoI guess without /s people don't get the sarcasm these days.
- dankwizard 2y agoI could have phrased it better but I was trying to be succinct. Smaller hands are likely to struggle to one hand control the Pro Max.
- happymellon 2y agoHonestly I'm not sure you could have phrased it worse! > Smaller hands are likely to struggle to one hand control the Pro Max. Couldn't agree more.
- browningstreet 2y agoFunny responses, but I’d say my hands are big.
- tomcam 2y agoSame.
- eastbound 2y agoI click on ads by mistake on my iPhone 15 pro max. Even the iPhone SE was better, with its bottom bezel. Thumb detection on iOS is very bad.
- amelius 2y agoYou're holding it wrong.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoYeah every hour on the YouTube app. Probably a google feature though. Ha
- dyauspitr 2y agoHow is that possible? The camera icon is in the bottom left corner of the screen and you use the physical lock button on the side to lock the iPhone.
- ascagnel_ 2y agoYou can also trigger the camera by swiping right-to-left on the lock screen or from the notification pull-down.
- xattt 2y agoDon’t shame the man with the extra digit projecting from his thenar eminence.
- saagarjha 2y agoIf you reach for the top left corner your thumb will naturally come into contact with the bottom right corner of the screen, assuming you are holding the device one-handed (in your right hand).
- oktoberpaard 2y agoI’m trying to picture this, but I can’t. If I hold and lock my iPhone with my right hand, I press the lock button with my thumb. If I try to reach the top left corner, I either do that with my left thumb (mostly) or index finger (sometimes), or with my right thumb (very awkward movement on a Pro Max). In none of these cases my right thumb comes in contact with the screen or even close to it. Maybe because I use the backside of my pinky finger to lock the phone in place.
- pests 2y agoI think he meant your palm hits the screen, which does happen to me sometimes. The right hand large stretch with the thumb into the top left area - the pad below your thumb on your palm can make contact with the screen.
- corobo 2y agoI'm always managing to tap the top of the phone resulting in either - opening some app that recently used location services Or worse - making whatever app I'm in jump to the top of its page with no way to get back to where I was short of doing a load of scrolling
- Tempest1981 2y agoDoesn't work well for me. Thumb gets too close to bottom, and now scrolling becomes zooming. All the time.
- jayd16 2y agoWell its not that they couldn't do it but the iPad has always had bezels and the apps are expecting bezels not thumb rejection. They could be but they're not built with an on screen safe area.
- dhosek 2y agoWhen I’m on boardgamearena in bed with my iPad pro on my belly, I often trigger touch events at the bottom of the screen from the folds of my shirt.
- caconym_ 2y agosomewhere to grab it without putting your fingers on the screen?
- arcanemachiner 2y ago> Why is the bezel so thick? How else were they supposed to make room for the extra 4GB of RAM required to support Apple Intelligence?
- hankman86 2y agoSo that they can release a successor model with thinner bezels. In reality this may be to (1) to keep costs down and (2) to distance the iPad mini from the more premium iPhone Pro Max. All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for? iPads are mostly used for media consumption, no matter how Apple wants to position them. Not sure why this necessitates AI hardware, but perhaps people really start using iPads for productivity/creativity workloads that can make use of “Apple Intelligence” (the silliest moniker since “Spatial Computing” and “Retina Display”). The comparatively small difference in screen real estate between an iPhone Pro Max and the iPad mini makes the latter rather pointless. Perhaps they are targeting people with a smaller iPhone who want another device to watch YouTube. What could have made a difference is a folding display. I think the iPad mini would have been the ideal candidate for that.
- notatoad 2y ago>Not sure why this necessitates AI hardware New Siri and iOS notification summaries seem like it should be enough of a reason for apple to want to ship an iPad with ai hardware.
- troupo 2y ago> for apple to want to ship an iPad with ai hardware. You mean the dedicated neural chip they've been gushing over for half a decade saying how it's an amazing dedicated chip for exactly this kind of work?
- notatoad 2y agoI mean they’ve made a product decision that they’re going to limit new Siri to their new chips and 16GB of ram. Regardless of how justified that decision is, or how truthful the marketing about their old chip was, they need an iPad mini that fits their stated requirements.
- davidee 2y agoLots of aircraft pilots love the iPad mini. Ideal sized tool for having strapped to a yoke, or to one's knee.
- napierzaza 2y ago[dead]
- wvenable 2y agoScreens come in standard sizes. It might simply be that they can't fit all the parts inside, including the battery, without making the device bigger than the standard screen size and so you get bezels. Bigger devices have more room in them and many of the parts are just the same size.
- Retr0id 2y agoAre "standard" screen sizes really something you have to care about at Apple-scale?
- wvenable 2y agoYes, LCDs are made as giant sheets that are cut into panels. They will want to cut those sheets in a way to ensure the least amount of waste as possible. They are not making them completely arbitrary sizes.
- jdietrich 2y agoThat giant sheet of mother glass is 2940mm x 3370mm. Cutting efficiency dictates the size of TVs, but it's basically irrelevant for phone or tablet displays.
- wvenable 2y agoEach block or piece of mother glass can be used for dozens or even hundreds of LCDs but it seems obvious that there are only so many ways you can effectively slice it. While manufacturers can theoretically produce custom-sized LCD panels, it's more economical and efficient to stick to standard sizes that align with their production lines. Producing custom-sized panels can involve retooling. Choosing a standard size also ensures greater availability. For a low cost product, I don't see why Apple would mess around with LCD sizes. Still, this is just a guess. Only Apple knows for sure.
- nfriedly 2y agoNo. Screen sizes come in whatever size Apple orders them in.
- chemmail 2y agoIpad Mini is such a good size. My friend lent me his Mini2 when he borrowed money from me and used it for a good 6 months i think and it was marvelous. I didn't use it all that much but later got an Air 2 and used it maybe slightly less. Then I got an iPad Pro 11" but only used it for a while and don't really touch it too much anymore. I feel maybe an ipad mini I would use more. But the jelly scroll really has me urked and I kinda want OLED on it, so there is definitely room for a Pro version if they wish, but the iPads are overwhelming with 5 sizes already.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago> overwhelming with 5 sizes already. without jobs it's just a matter of time they go back to being "just an expensive dell" like before
- dullcrisp 2y agoWhat makes you say that?
- imchillyb 2y agoNot OP, but... That very behavior was troublesome for Apple in the past, twice. Two times Steve Jobs swooped in and saved Apple from Dell-ifying themselves. Twice. Since Job's demise, Apple has relentlessly marched toward Dellification once more. The immediate revenue is tantalizing, it's the dilution of ones own market that ends up killing the golden goose, and the eggs they lay.
- fhdsgbbcaA 2y agoDon’t worry, locking you into their services will make it impossible to leave! The one overarching success of the Tim Cook era is ruthlessly pursuing consumer lock in at all costs.
- exitb 2y ago
- Dalewyn 2y ago>Why is the bezel so thick? So you have somewhere to actually hold the bloody thing. Bezelless gadgets look great in photos but are impractical as fuck to handle.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 1oooqooq 2y agobecause the target audience of mini ipads are babies.
- askafriend 2y agoIt's likely they're repurposing slightly older display inventory to preserve margins, recoup R&D costs and to bring overall component costs lower since this is meant to be a cheaper device.
- ricardobeat 2y agoIt's about 9mm which is not that thick. It really does make a difference in how you can hold it one-handed and without accidentally touching the screen. Most phones and thin-bezel tablets need to be held very carefully.
- nfriedly 2y agoMaybe I'm weird, but I don't mind having a bit of bezel around the screen. It makes the device easier to grab without extra touches or fingerprints on the screen. It's also a good place for cameras and front-facing speakers. (Although I don't think any iPad has front facing speakers.)
- giancarlostoro 2y agoI only ever saw one tablet with front facing speakers and I am to this way still baffled why I only saw one altogether, it seems like the most sensible design for a tablet.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fhdsgbbcaA 2y agoHonestly with a tablet I prefer some bezel so I can hold it without touching the screen. I have both a 9th Gen iPad and an M2 iPad Pro, I use the “inferior” one almost exclusively.
- dartharva 2y agoMy thoughts exactly, when I first saw it I thought I had landed on a launch article from 2014
- Tagbert 2y agoBezels are useful for devices that you can’t just hold in the flat of your hand. Provides a place to hold on to. Also, this is an LCD screen. The substrate is rigid. An OLED, like on the iPhone is on a flexible substrate and can be bent at the edges to connect to the circuit board. That lets you put the screen closer to the edge.
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoI have had phones and tablets with IPS displays with way thinner bezels so that argument is void.
- nsonha 2y agoWhich argument? Pretty obvious the bezel is that way for usability (so you can hold the device). That other devices exist with thin bezel does not prove anything.
- CraigJPerry 2y agoOnly on 3 sides I think though? You still need an edge connector on one side (i think)
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoYeah, but even on the "thicker" side they're stil way thinner than the current iPad Minis.
- maven29 2y agoThe technique you mention is very outdated and not used anymore. Current thin-bezel OLED panels (even on flexible substrate OLED) use a packaging technique which can be used in the exactly same way on rigid LCD panels. Folding the substrate with driver bonded is expensive, affects yields, and doesn't even get you the thinnest bezels There are no LCD panels in recent phones that use COG packaging (chip-on-glass) for the display driver and run into the limitation you mentioned. Almost all current LCD phones will utitlize COF (chip-on-film) where the TFT array is attached to a flex-pcb which also contains the display driver. You can achieve bezels just as thin or thinner using this technique, and Apple has used the technique you mention only once, COF is used even on flexible OLED panels.
- simjnd 2y agoThe iPad mini is a second-class product in Apple's lineup. It rarely gets updated, and if you use one you will see how poorly UI is scaled. I was really hyped up and really wanted one, but after using one I gave up on the idea. The 60 Hz LCD screen is also among the worst screen of all the products Apple currently sells.
- skybrian 2y agoWow, so negative! I use mine heavily, including right now. Mostly with Chrome and Google apps, though, along with Kindle. Also, Genshin Impact to play games with the kid. Best tablet I’ve owned. Genshin Impact uses a huge amount of space, though.
- Temporary_31337 2y agoWhy don’t you want to use a bigger iPad? I play, read graphic novels and watch videos on the larger iPad as more screen estate is better.
- arghwhat 2y agoWhy don’t you want to use a bigger screen? I play and watch videos on a 75” TV as more screen estate is better. Bigger is not always better, but it’s almost always costlier and less convenient.
- skybrian 2y agoMy wife has one and it seems too big and heavy for most things I do. Good for sheet music, though.
- 2024user 2y agoI have an iPad mini and it's pretty much perfect as it is for my use case. I use it as a device I can pick up and watch videos while on the go or doing an activity (cooking etc.), show videos to my kid and as a device I can travel with. The only complaint I have with it is that it only supports one profile but I think that applies to all ipads
- tuatoru 2y agoThe device can have a bigger battery with a thick bezel.
- crossroadsguy 2y agoCan have or does have?
- donatj 2y agoI upgraded to an M2 Air from an iPad 7 a couple months ago, My biggest complaint apart from the worse battery life is that there is no way to safely hold the thing one handed while walking while not be interacting with the screen. Give me somewhere to hold the thing!
- sergiobeluti 2y ago[flagged]
- janandonly 2y agoI recently purchased the M1 iPad Air and was also shocked that the bezel was a lot thicker than my much older IPad Air 2. I don’t know why we put up with this regression in technology.
- stetrain 2y ago> Could it be that since this device is only $650 USD It's $499 USD. And if it's like the previous gen it will be on sale for $399 in a year or so.
- burnte 2y agoI own it, the bezels can't really be much thinner on the small device, they're well sized. They don't look as big on the real thing in person.
- soapdog 2y agoI have it. The bezels make it easier to hold. I like them, never understood the appeal of borderless devices to be honest
- tigereyeTO 2y agoBezels are good. Bezels are GREAT. They give you something to hold without interacting with the screen. If you've ever used a device with edge-to-edge, you know you have to hold it like a diva with 10-inch nails—it is neither comfortable nor effective. In my opinion, the industry's trend towards smaller-and-smaller bezels has made it MORE difficult to interact with them than the advances gained by having a few millimeters larger screens. Leave the bezels alone, bud
- rowanG077 2y agoWhat's wrong with virtual bezels? Seems to me to be the best of both worlds. People who can't handle an ipad without bezels can just configure whatever they want.
- lupusreal 2y agoI didn't know that was a thing. Granted, I don't own one... but my grandmother does and would benefit from this feature. I suspect the people who need it the most are the least likely to know it's an option. With real bezels they don't need to.
- yunohn 2y agoAFAIK it’s not a thing on my iPad. Maybe parent was expressing a desired feature?
- tcdent 2y agoMakes me think of my MacBook Air. The only part of the screen with fingerprints on it is over the front facing camera.
- dotancohen 2y agoMy Boox device has small bezels around three edges and one large bezel around the left edge. It's terrific, I can hold it comfortably and there's a quick button to switch orientation if I want the bezel on another side.
- KoolKat23 2y agoI have 12 inch Honor Mate Pad 9 and I think the bezels are smaller than this thing. The tablet cost €250 and is great value for money. I never have any issues with the thin bezel ever. It's a tablet after all. You don't hold it and control it with one hand. Even to do so on an 8 inch tablet would be a stretch. It's probably just that though. If the bezels were smaller, the device would be too close to an iPhone size and cannibalize sales.
- nathanasmith 2y agoI don't know but I have a Galaxy Fold and I hate the tiny bezels it has in tablet mode. Trying not to touch the screen while holding it adds unnecessary cognitive load and just makes it feel fiddly. I also have a previous gen iPad mini and I love the thicker bezels.